here can be few experiences more miserable or powerless as watching your world continue to unravel as your greatest rivals look on, chuckling and gloating.

The fury at Mike Dean’s decision to award a penalty for Tyrone Mears’s challenge on Martin Olsson, which was converted by David Dunn, was probably taken to new levels by a shirtless El-Hadji Diouf waving at the Burnley supporters with both arms before heading down the tunnel.

That Brian Jensen, the Burnley goalkeeper, was almost hit by a bottle as he made a similar walk after his warm-up shows the intensity of this rivalry, as will the presence of police hooligan-spotters at tonight’s reserve game between the teams.

So it must have been all the harder for Burnley to take as their run without a competitive victory against Blackburn Rovers was extended to 31 years, while their record of one win in 21 Barclays Premier League matches shows how desperate their battle to avoid relegation has become.

For weeks now the talk has been of “still believing” and “not giving up” but the phrase “mathematically impossible” is starting to be used on a regular basis around Turf Moor.

They had gone two months without a Premier League win before Owen Coyle left for Bolton and they have picked up only four points in 12 matches since Brian Laws took charge. The manager has a point when he says that Burnley are rarely beaten heavily, defeats, even by small margins, on a regular basis will take you only one way.

But while he acknowledged their lack of goal threat — there were more shots at a giant pie in the half-time entertainment — he was aggrieved at the decision to penalise Mears.

The impressive Olsson was sent in behind the Burnley defence by Dunn’s header and went down under Mears’s challenge after knocking the ball past Jensen.

“Olsson took a dive, he’s conned the referee,” Laws said. “The referee’s not in a great position and he’s given the penalty, which was very harsh and left us with a mountain to climb.

“I’m not blaming the player, he’s done everything possible to try and get a goal against us through a penalty or his own work, but I’m disappointed because we want to see honesty and we want to see the referee get the correct decisions.

“Everybody will write us off and say we’re down, maybe even our own supporters, but it’s still mathematically possible. We’re going to have to get three or maybe four wins but we won’t give up.”

Olsson, the versatile Swede who was signed by Mark Hughes in 2006, has shot to prominence this season, looking equally comfortable at left back or left wing, and he had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside with a quarter of an hour gone.

But shortly afterwards, he went down in the area and Dunn scored from the spot for his eighth goal in 16 Premier League starts this season.

Burnley’s only opportunity of the first half was a volley by Leon Cort that dropped wide. Blackburn should have made the game safe when Olsson’s drive came down off the bar, but the whole of the ball failed to cross the line before Phil Jones headed wide. Franco Di Santo also failed to hit the target from Michel Salgado’s cross.

The hosts went close when Danny Fox’s cross was guided wide by Christopher Samba, with Steven Fletcher about to pounce at the far post. Dean awarded a goal kick, which summed up Burnley’s frustrations.

Even Sam Allardyce, whose team moved up to tenth in the table with their second away win of the campaign, felt that the penalty award was “slightly harsh”. “There might only have been slight contact but it’s gone for us,” the Blackburn manager said. “In a big game like this you need a little bit of luck and perhaps we’ve had it.”

Referee: M Dean. Attendance: 21,546.